A Better Reality
by JTRN08
Summary: "It doesn't matter, it's still better than anything you had". What if Dean had agreed with the people in his Dream world. AU WIAWSNB.
1. Chapter 1

**This is my take on what could have happened if Dean had stayed in his dream during What Is And What Should Never Be. Dunno how long I'll make it but I'll try to post two chapters at a time, one for Dean and one for Sam.**

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><p>Dean stood in the dreary old warehouse, staring at the young girl strung up before him. This girl had been haunting him for the last few days, ever since he was taken by the Djinn. She looked very near death, pale, hollowed eyes with dark bags beneath them, face slack with no expression, gaze blank.<p>

"Dean, please." He heard Sam say from behind him.

"What if I'm like her?" Dean said, not specifically talking to Sam, but more like talking to himself. "What if I'm tied up in here someplace? What if all this is in my head?"

Dean walked closer to the girl, continuing his musings. "Maybe it gives us some sort of supernatural acid, and then just feeds on us slow." He could hear Sam behind him talking but barely registered the words. "What if that's why she keeps appearing to me, she's not a spirit, but more and more I'm catching flashes of reality? Ya know, like I'm in here somewhere and I'm catatonic and I'm taking all this stuff in but I can't snap out of it."

"Yeah, ok, look, you're right, I was wrong" Sam said, pulling Dean away from the girl and back towards the entrance. "We need to get out of here fast."

Suddenly Dean whipped his arm out of Sam's grip, brushing his non-hunter trained brother off like he was nothing. Sam gave him an incredulous look.

"I don't think you're real." Dean said, slowly gaining his wits back.

"Dean, do you feel that?" Sam asked, grabbing his arms and shaking him. "Feel this, I'm real, this is not an acid trip! I'm real and that this is going to come down here and kill us for real."

"There's only one way to be sure." Dean said, face expressionless as he pulled the silver knife from his jacket. Sam backed away, holding out his hands in self-defense. Had the situation been different, Dean would have smiled, laughed and told Sam not to worry, that he would never hurt him. But he knows this isn't Sam. "Old wives tale, if you're about to die in a dream, you wake up."

Dean could hear not-Sam babbling on about how was all crazy, saw him step forward and reach for the knife. Dean held the knife out, almost threatening Sam with it, before again turning it towards himself, reassuring himself that he'll wake up, reassuring himself that he's sure about this plan, even if not 100%. The only think that stopped him is the change in not-Sam's voice, as he goes from whiny and babbling to forceful in his command to stop.

As Dean looked up and glanced around, he could see his mother striding towards him from the right, looking just as she did the last time he saw her when he was four years old. Jess on his left, and his girlfriend behind not-Sam.

"Why'd you have to keep digging?" Not-Sam asked, now so calm. "Why couldn't you have left well enough alone? You were happy."

Dean steels his expression as his mom walks toward him and they stand face to face. She tells him to put the knife down, but Dean is too bewildered by everything around him that he can't respond. When he can finally speak, he can only tell her and himself that she's not real, that nothing in this dream world is real. She plainly tells him that it's better than anything he had outside of this world.

At first, Dean is taken aback by the comment. But as he thinks about it, he realizes it's true. He may not have dad, or hunting, and his relationship with Sam could use some work. But compared to the life he's been living since he was a child, this really is better. He listens as his mom tells him that they can be a family again. Afraid it will end too soon, he reminds her that he's a victim of the Djinn and he'll die in only a few days. She soothes him and tells him it will feel like years with his family, years in quiet, calm safety.

Jess reassures him that he'll get to see Sam live a regular life. Carmen tells him that she loves him and asks him to stay and have a family with her. It's Sam's words that hit him the hardest, that really convince him to stay in this artificial life his mind built.

"Why is it our job to save everyone?" Sam asks, "Haven't we done enough?" Dean hears Sam ask for the knife again, he hesitates for a second, unsure whether he wants to leave real-Sam alone and unprotected in the real world. His own mind reminds him that Sam can take care of himself, that he's said so several times and did fine on his own while he was in college.

Dean sighs, the weight of being a hunter lifted off his shoulders as he willingly turns over the knife and is immediately rewarded with a big, warm hug from his brother. His mother stands at their side, her hands on their shoulders, smile beaming. Jess and Carmen are also smiling as the setting around him morphs to his childhood home. Dean himself smiles and takes a slow deep breath, he's finally home.


	2. Chapter 2

**Here's Sam's chapter.**

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><p>Sam stalked through the dank warehouse, silver knife dipped in lamb's blood at the ready. When he didn't hear from Dean, he came to the coordinates he knew Dean was searching. Fearing the worst, that the Djinn had killed Dean when he tried to kill it, Sam wasn't sure he was going to like what he found here. He sees bodies, some old, desiccated and decaying and some newer, with blank expressions on their face, looking sickly strung up with IV bags filled with their own blood hung near. Sam doesn't have time right now to stop to check if they are alive, he needs to find Dean.<p>

He finds a girl he recognizes, the latest victim taken, he feels for her pulse but her skin is cold and there's no heartbeat. Beyond her he sees a shadow on a tarp in the familiar shape of his brother. He runs to him and pulls back the tarp. Dean looks very much like the others, drained, sickly and blank. The bag attached to his neck isn't nearly as full as some of the other victims and Sam can feel a faint pulse as he reaches up to detach the needle in his neck.

"Dean!" Sam calls, trying to rouse his unresponsive brother. Dean doesn't even moan as the ropes holding him up are cut and he falls to the concrete floor. Sam kneels next to him, calling his name a few more times before pulling Dean into his lap.

"Dean!" Sam shouts again, shaking his brother, trying desperately to wake him. His brother's eyes are open slightly, but Sam can see that they are staring unfocused beyond him. Sam's hand shakes as he again looks for the one reassurance that his brother is still alive, his pulse. He feels it, still weak but there.

Just then, a reflection in a puddle just beyond Dean's body, Sam sees glowing blue eyes. He reaches slowly and carefully for the knife he dropped upon finding his brother. Gripping it tightly, he swings his body around to face the Djinn, stabbing it in the stomach. Sam watches the bright, blue light in its eyes fade away. The monster now dead, Sam turns back to his brother.

"C'mon Dean, wake up." Sam said. "The Djinn's dead, now snap out of it!"

Sam looks at his brother, nothing had changed in his appearance. His eyes were still blank, his jaw still slightly slack. Sam tried shaking him again, but there was still no change. Sam hefts Dean into his arms, staggering slightly with his brother's weight as he stood. Sam grumbles to no one in particular that Dean isn't getting any more double bacon cheeseburgers when all this is over. He carries Dean to the Impala, ignoring the junker he stole to get to the warehouse. Laying Dean down in the backseat, Sam felt awkward as he sat in the driver's seat and drove to the nearest hospital.

When he arrives there, he drags Dean from the backseat and runs as fast as he can into the emergency department. Screaming for help, Sam is surrounded by nurses and doctors, Dean is laid on a stretcher and whisked away very quickly. One nurse stays behind to get information on what exactly happened to his brother. Sam, thinking fast, rattles off a story of how Dean had gone out for a run and hadn't returned. That he had tracked the GPS in Dean's phone and found him at the warehouse. The nurse nodded, telling him that she would let the police know about a possible kidnapping and then left Sam with some paperwork to fill out in the waiting room.

It's almost two hours before Sam sees Dean again. The doctors let him know they have him stabilized, that he's lost a lot of blood. There's some sort of toxin in his blood that they are still trying to figure out. What Sam sees when he enters the room is his brother lying on the bed, he's so pale that if not for the heart monitor beeping, Sam would think he was dead. There are bags of fluid and blood on the IV pole pouring into Dean's near empty veins.

Sam takes a seat next to the bed, takes Dean's hand into his own. Sam isn't sure what to say, isn't sure Dean can even hear him. All Sam can do right now is pray that Dean will wake up.


End file.
